Bow Those Knees Ephesians 3:14

14For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;



Here we find the Apostle Paul’s prayer for the church at Ephesus. He says, “for this cause” twice, once here and once in verse 1, which refers back to chapter 2 where Paul writes, “4But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, 5Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) 6And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: 7That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. 8For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”

It is the riches of His grace to the church at Ephesus that compelled Paul to get on His knees before God on their behalf that God might show them His loving kindness toward them.

This ought to be our prayer as well. We need to learn to spend time “on our knees”, perhaps literally but most certainly figuratively as we find a quiet place to get alone with God to talk to Him. God deserves our praise and our prayers. There is a purpose for those prayers and that purpose is that God might strengthen us with His might by His Spirit.

Prayer allows God to grant us that strength. This prayer is not to earn God’s favor; it is an opportunity for Him to tune our hearts toward Him and help us to walk where He would have us walk. This daily process of submission to God’s will for our lives brings us closer and closer to Him and His perfect will for our lives.

Paul prayed for this group of people that he loved very much. We need to make it a practice to do the same thing for those that we love! As we begin praying that God will meet the needs of those that we love, a couple things start to happen. First of all, we will begin to love more people! We will discover that there is a world out there that needs Jesus and all that He can do for them. We will begin to discover those people and begin to care about those needs and take them to the Lord for His care.

A second thing that we will discover is that as we take the needs of others to the Lord, we will discover that God is able to take care of the needs that we have without really having to ask Him to do so! When our focus is on the needs of those around us, our needs oftentimes seem to fade away. This happens for two reasons; first, we discover that our needs are not as bad as we thought they were compared to the needs of those around us and second, God is able to meet our needs as we reach out to meet the needs of others!

It is no wonder that Jesus said in Luke chapter 6, “38Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.”